


The Illusion of Friendship

by Calacious



Category: General Hospital
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gift Fic, Hugs, Jason feels, Jason-Centric, Light Angst, non-canon death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:29:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5510249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All you have to do is pass out gifts to children," Spinelli had said...he'd neglected to mention that Jason also had to wear a red suit and listen to the wishes of too many children to count.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Illusion of Friendship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suerum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suerum/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** I do not own the character of this work of fiction, and am making no profit, monetary or otherwise, through the writing of this.

[](http://tinypic.com?ref=r2p8og)

"I don't sing, Spinelli," Jason reminded his friend. Not for the first time. He felt like a broken record. Ignored the sad look that crossed his friend’s face.

"But, Stone Cold --"

"The answer is, no," Jason cut Spinelli off before he could make the same spiel that he'd been making, almost daily, for the past two weeks. "I'm not going to join the holiday choir for General Hospital's annual Children's Charity Drive."

"That's just it, Stone Cold," Spinelli said, voice filled with a plaintive enthusiasm that threatened to give Jason a headache. "You don't have to join the choir, or sing. All you have to do is pass out Christmas gifts to the children."

Jason eyed Spinelli skeptically, and frowned at the guileless look on his friend's face. Ordinarily, he'd trust Spinelli. Spinelli couldn't lie to save his life (which was actually a bad thing in Jason's line of work). Still, Jason couldn't shake the feeling that, while Spinelli wasn't outright lying to him, he was holding something important back from him. 

"Please?" Spinelli asked, green eyes wide and begging, lower lip trembling. 

Sighing, and running a hand through his hair, not liking any of this, and, for the first time ever, not fully trusting Spinelli, Jason nodded. 

"Fine, I'll do it. But under one condition," he said, smiling at the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look that Spinelli gave him. He held up a finger, and Spinelli's eyes crossed as he looked at it. "I don't sing. Period."

Smiling, Spinelli nodded eagerly, making Jason think of a puppy wagging its tail. He crossed his heart with an index finger. "No singing for Stone Cold, though might I add that --"

Pursing his lips, Jason shook his head. "No. Whatever it is that you are going to add, no."

Sighing, Spinelli gave him a broad smile, and, before Jason could counter the act, threw his arms around the hit man and hugged him fiercely, squeezing the air out of him. 

"I'm not a teddy bear," Jason muttered, but Spinelli only squeezed him tighter.

"Thank you," the young man whispered, and then he released his hold on Jason and took a few steps back. "You won't regret this. Promise. And the children will be so happy. You have no idea."

It turned out, Jason really did have no idea. He'd been bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Tricked by good ol' by Br'er Rabbit, and tarred and feathered for his trouble. 

"Spinelli," Jason growled, eyes narrowing down to two deadly slits of hardened ice. 

If looks could kill, Spinelli would have been dead and rotting in his grave hours ago, but looks could not, as Fate would have it, kill, and so Spinelli was still counted among the living, his own green eyes sparkling with joy and mirth.

Spinelli was dressed from head to toe in green and red. He wore green and red striped stockings, pointy black shoes that had bells on the end of them, a pointed, red and green felt hat that had a bell attached to the tip of it. Even his cheeks had twin circles of rosy red painted on them. Spinelli’s green coat had a ring of bells around the cuff, and bells instead of buttons. He jingled whenever he took a step, or twitched, or looked at someone cross eyed. 

"What's wrong, Stone Cold?" Spinelli asked, voice far too innocent sounding. 

"What's wrong?" Jason raised his eyebrows to the fuzzy white edge of the red hat that had been crammed onto his head, after a false beard of white had been affixed to his face, and he’d been stuffed and jammed into a suit of jolly red.

"What's wrong?" Jason could hear his voice raising to an octave that would have gotten him an invitation to the choir, no audition necessary.

Spinelli swallowed, his face paling beneath the painted on circles of red that adorned his cheeks. He held his hands out before him, bells jingling far too merrily given the circumstances.

"You said all I had to do was pass gifts out to children," Jason said, advancing on his friend, white gloved hands reaching to strangle the elf. 

Somewhere off to his right, a flash of white light caught his attention, and Jason turned his livid glare in the direction of the intruder. He was met with a sheepish smile from one of the volunteers who held up an old fashioned camera and shrugged his shoulders. It was one of those Polaroid things that spit out the pictures after they’d been taken.

"I'm afraid that I just couldn't resist," the elderly man said. "I was just coming to check on Santa, and see if he was ready to come out and greet the children."

Jason scowled at the man who snapped off another photo, and gave him a smile that melted the rest of Jason's anger. 

"It's a wonderful, selfless act that you and your friend are performing for the community and the children tonight, Mr. Morgan, playing Santa," the man said softly, eyes glistening. "A right kind thing, and I for one, am not likely to forget this anytime soon. Thank you. My little granddaughter, Annisa,has talked nonstop for weeks about how excited she is to see Santa before..." the man teared up, and took a deep breath, wiping at his eyes. "Before the cancer takes her. Thank you," he said, and he grasped both of Jason's hands in his, and squeezed before snapping off yet another picture and slipping away through the door.

"The Jackal is sorry for his deception, and that he left out certain key details that Stone Cold would have found pertinent prior to his acceptance of this position," Spinelli said, eyes cast down toward the bells on his slippers. 

Jason peered through the crack in the door that the man had left through after checking on the reluctant Santa and his elf, saw the group of children gathered on the carpeted floor, faces aglow with Christmas cheer and hope, and sighed. He didn't like it, but it was too late to back out now. Jason wondered which of the children was Annisa. 

Plastering a smile on his face, Jason stepped out of the room, gesturing for Spinelli, his own personal elf for the night, to follow him. Spinelli's smile was bright and engaging, and it looked like it took him no effort whatsoever. Jason's felt forced, and he wondered if his mouth was going to freeze that way, like the old childhood threat. He really hoped not. 

But, as the night wore on, Jason's smiles came far easier than they had at first, and he no longer wanted to throttle Spinelli. 

Though he wasn't used to having kids sit on his lap and hug him freely, it wasn't as bad as Jason had feared it would be. None of the children cried, though there were a few close calls. 

The children's wishes humbled Jason, and, while he was not a man given to tears, or emotional displays, his heart ached for the children and their families. 

Annisa turned out to be a slight girl with a dimpled smile that was contagious, and when she whispered her wish into Santa's ear, Jason had to close his eyes and swallow hard against the sudden lump that had formed in his throat. He couldn't find his voice, and had to settle for a wobbly smile and a curt nod of his head. He'd do his best to ensure that her grandfather knew how much she loved him, and that her parents and little brother would have a happy Christmas, and that the elf to the right of Santa (Spinelli) had a Merry Christmas, too. It warmed Jason’s heart that the little girl was thinking of the happiness of others, including strangers, rather than herself.

Carols were sung, and, in spite of his protestations that he did not sing, Santa sang along with the elves (there were three others besides Spinelli), the children and their families, and the choir. 

Jason couldn't help but smile when his friend's voice rang out loud, clear, and beautiful as Spinelli sang portions of, "The Little Drummer Boy," solo. 

The sounds of laughter and happy exchanges followed Jason back to the room where he'd been outfitted in his Santa's costume earlier, and he let the sounds carry him through the rest of the evening as he emerged from the room as himself, explaining that Santa had to return to the North Pole to help the elves get ready for the big day. 

Jason had a hard time recalling another day when his heart had been filled with such joy, and, though his pride still smarted when he thought about how Spinelli had tricked him, he couldn't hold onto his anger when looking into the faces of the children and their families. 

Before he left that night, Jason made sure to speak with Annisa's grandfather and pass her loving words onto him, and her family. He waved off their thanks, and tucked away the candy cane Annisa's little brother had pressed into his hand. 

He didn't see the pictures that the old man had slipped into his pocket until days later, when he was looking for a misplaced set of keys. There were at least a dozen pictures. Some of them featuring Santa with various children whispering their fondest wishes into his ear, including one of Annisa and her grandfather standing off to the side. Jason could hear them now, their small voices filled with hope, and trust that Santa could grant the desires of their hearts. Jason wished that he could do what they’d asked of him. That he had the power to grant Christmas wishes.

Jason barely recognized himself, dressed as Santa, wondered at the way that his eyes seemed to sparkle and at the rosiness of his cheeks in the pictures. The smiles that had been captured by the camera had been unguarded and genuine. So unlike him in many ways.

'Maybe I should smile more often,' Jason thought, and then immediately discarded that thought as fanciful. 

No matter what Spinelli said about being able to turn over a new leaf (and it was not lost on Jason that his playing Santa at this year's charity event was a step in that direction, carefully orchestrated by a rather devious Spinelli), Jason had a certain reputation to uphold. A reputation that did not include jovial smiles, and fanciful thoughts about such smiles, and granting Christmas wishes.

One photograph; however, made Jason pause in his musings, and he fingered it carefully, mindful not to get any smudges on it. It made him smile, in spite of his earlier self-admonishment that hit men didn't smile in unguarded moments. 

Not even fully aware of his own thoughts, or where his feet were taking him, Jason placed all but two of the gifted photographs on the catchall table in the foyer, donned his jacket and nodded at Spinelli as he passed him in the hallway on his way out of the penthouse. He was unaware of the smile on his face, or of the look that Spinelli gave him when he turned around to watch him leave.

Jason wasn't even aware that he was whistling the tune to, "Sleigh Ride," until the song started playing on the radio, and then he sung along to it, and then to, "Holly Jolly Christmas". 

When he finally became more aware of his actions, and where it was that his feet, and his wandering mind was leading him, Jason grew nervous, and almost left the overly bright, cheerful store he'd wound up at. He dug his heels in, though, and, nervous, palms sweaty, handed the photographs to a sales clerk. 

"Can I get these framed? Do you do that here?" he asked. 

The sales clerk, Rose, her nameplate read, gave him a tired, yet cheerful smile. "Yes, we do. Let me show you our frames."

A painful, and overly informative hour and a half later, and Jason had, not only two framed, and wrapped photographs, but a photo album for the other photos he'd been given tucked under one arm, and a ridiculously large stuffed bear tucked under the other. Thus armed, Jason stalked out of the store, his earlier mood forgotten as he made his way to the hospital, and inquired after Annisa.  

The little girl was gone. It was quick. Just that morning.

Jason's heart froze, but he nodded his understanding. Left the stuffed bear on the counter, for the hospital staff to give it to another child, and walked away from the nurse's station, tears threatening to fall in spite of the fact that he told himself he hadn't really known the little girl, and that he shouldn't be feeling this way. That it was all Spinelli's fault for tricking him into playing Santa in the first place.

He almost tossed the framed photographs and the photo album in a trashcan that he passed on his way out of the hospital, but his hands seemed to have a mind of their own and held them tighter, keeping them safe from arbitrary disposal. 

Jason almost bumped into Annisa's grandfather before he saw him, and at first he stopped, frozen in place, staring blankly at the man before he pulled one of the wrapped photographs free and handed it, wordlessly to the man. 

Jason walked away before he could be engaged in conversation. Ignored the man's thick, "Thank you," and kept walking until he'd reached the exit, and then he ran, blind, heart aching in a way that it hadn’t in a long time.

"Stone Cold," Spinelli's voice was distant, an echo that reached Jason seconds after he'd spoken. "Are you alright?"

Jason hadn't remembered reaching home. His heart felt heavy, and he shook his head. "She died," he said, knowing, even as he said the words that Spinelli wouldn't know who he was talking about. 

Spinelli's brow scrunched in confusion, and he opened and then closed his mouth, patted Jason on the back.

"The little girl, from the hospital," Jason added, hoping that he wouldn't have to say more, because his throat was starting to itch, and he could feel tears pricking his eyes. He didn’t want to cry. Not now. Not ever.

He was not one given to sentimentality. He shouldn't be feeling this way. It wasn't like he'd known the girl. She'd sat on his lap for all of a minute, maybe a minute and a half. Had whispered a handful of words into his ear, tickling it. Her death shouldn't have had this kind of impact on him. Shouldn't have reminded him of the son that he'd lost. 

Understanding softened Spinelli's features. "I'm so sorry, Stone Cold." 

Spinelli wrapped his arms around Jason, and this time, Jason didn't pull away from the embrace, let it go on for far longer than he normally would have, and for once, without complaint, took the comfort being offered him until he felt uncomfortable and had to step away. Spinelli let him, and gave him his space.

"You made one of her wishes come true," Spinelli said. "That has to count for something."

Jason didn't know what something like that could count for in the life that he'd led. How many children's wishes would he have to grant to earn forgiveness for the crimes of his past, and future?

Sitting heavily on the couch, Jason handed Spinelli the second picture that he'd had framed. "It's...it's not much," he said when Spinelli stared at the offered gift as though it was made of gold, or something equally precious.

"I...the Jackal has a present for his Master," Spinelli stammered and turned to go up the stairs and retrieve the present, but Jason caught him by the wrist, and pulled him down to the couch, pushed the present into his hands.

"Shouldn't we wait to exchange Christmas gifts?" Spinelli asked.

Jason shook his head. He didn't know why he wanted Spinelli to open this gift now. It should make no difference if he opened it now, or three days from now, but for some reason, Jason's heart constricted as he contemplated waiting three days for Spinelli to open it. It wasn't as though he'd taken the picture himself or anything. He hadn't even picked out the frame for it on his own. Rose had advised him, and he'd gone with her instincts, not his own.

"Okay," Spinelli said, drawing the vowel out in response to whatever look Jason was giving him. "The Jackal will open Stone Cold's festively festooned holiday gift now, and will patiently wait to give Stone Cold his own merry package on Christmas Eve, as per tradition."

Spinelli cast furtive glances in Jason's direction, as though still questioning whether or not Jason really meant for him to open the present early. He slowly worked the wrapping off of the framed picture one piece of tape at a time. 

Jason wanted to rip the present out of Spinelli's hands and tear off the paper for him. That, too, brought back memories of his son, which Jason quickly pushed aside.

"It was store wrapped," Jason said, hoping to speed up the opening portion of whatever this was that he was putting himself and Spinelli through tonight. He wasn't even sure what it was that he was hoping to get out of this, but he was sitting forward, hands twisting in his lap in an effort to keep them from snatching the gift from Spinelli's as he watched the man open the gift like it was something precious. 

Spinelli nodded, and giving Jason an indulgent smile, proceeded to tear the last piece of tape off of the paper, leaving it almost perfectly intact. He carefully, painstakingly pulled the present from the paper, and then, much to Jason's mounting frustration, laid the paper aside as though to preserve it. Jason wanted to blurt out that if Spinelli was so concerned about wrapping paper he'd go out and buy him a whole ream of it. Heck, he'd buy out an entire store of it if Spinelli wanted him to, not that Spinelli would ever request something of that nature from him. 

Now that he thought about it, Jason couldn't remember Spinelli requesting much along the lines of material goods from him over the years. He requested things like what he'd asked of Jason the other night -- Jason's presence at a special event, a portion of his time, a hug...

Jason wasn't sure what he'd been expecting when he'd had the photograph framed. Had no idea what he'd hoped to gain by forcing Spinelli to open the impromptu gift tonight, but it wasn't the nearly pained look that crossed Spinelli's face, and the way that Spinelli's green eyes flooded with tears, making them look like a deep pool.

"Thank you," Spinelli said, and he pulled Jason into yet another hug.

It was awkward and uncomfortable because Jason's hands were still twisting in his lap, and the frame of the picture dug into his side, and Spinelli's breath was warm and wet against the side of his neck. Even so, Jason let Spinelli pull away first, and didn't rush the one armed hug.

"Thank you," Spinelli repeated, grinning goofily at the picture of the two of them -- Jason dressed as Santa, standing next to elf Spinelli, an arm draped casually over his shoulders.

Both of them had broad, unencumbered smiles on their faces and their eyes fairly twinkled. The simple wooden frame that housed the picture complemented it well. The bottom of the frame had the word, Friends, stenciled on it.

The picture gave off the illusion that the two men -- brightly decorated Christmas tree a colorful backdrop behind them -- were the best of friends. The thought struck Jason as though a fist had been slammed into his gut. It wasn't an illusion. They really were good friends; it was just that Jason had kind of forgotten, and had taken it, and the man sitting next to him, for granted over the years.

Jason wondered how the old man had been able to capture such lively pictures the other night, and why he'd thought to give them to Jason. Whatever the reason, Jason's glad that he did it, that he'd helped Jason put that kind of smile on Spinelli's face. A smile that, now he saw it, he realized had been missing for a long time. 

"You're welcome," Jason said, and this time it was he who pulled Spinelli into an awkward, one-armed hug. 

It was short, and of the sort of hug that many might call a 'bro hug' or 'manly' or whatever it was that people called the kind of hug that a guy gave another guy when he was inexplicably happy, and for no real reason at all. 

“You know, Stone Cold, for someone who doesn’t sing, you sounded pretty good,” Spinelli said.

Jason laughed. 

"Merry Christmas," Jason whispered into Spinelli's ear, smiling when Spinelli whispered it back, clutching the picture tightly to his chest.


End file.
